Student Learning Grant coming to schools around the province

The provincial government is giving schools more than 29-million dollars to spend on supplies and resources next year.
The Education Ministry says the Student Learning Grant will amount to about 50-dollars per public school student.
Schools will be able to decide what kind of supplies to purchase and will be required to report to the ministry and parents about how the funds were used before the start of the 2017-2018 school year.
Minister Mike Bernier says schools should have two goals in mind: how to ease back-to-school supply costs for parents and how to implement the province's new curriculum.

Meanwhile New Democratic Party education critic Rob Fleming says supposedly new provincial funding for school supplies is simply the return of cash the province stripped from the system barely one year ago.
Fleming says the Education Ministry ordered 29-million dollars in administrative savings from school districts in 2015, and now -- with an election looming -- that money is coming back.